Message #3171

From: Melinda Green <melinda@superliminal.com>
Subject: A Time for Everything
Date: Sat, 22 Aug 2015 12:31:29 -0700

I find it interesting that both Christian’s 3^7 and Doug’s 5^4 solution
came many, many years after they first considered attempting them. It
sure can be frightening to consider doing these things, and walking away
may look like a good response, but it seems like eventually we come back
to do it, so in the end, perhaps we have no real choice. Doug’s 13 year
gap might be a record if he had actually started it back then and then
completed the same solve so many years later. So many of the solutions
I’m sent are from people who first saw the puzzle many years earlier.
Another thing that seems to be universal is overestimating the
difficulty of the puzzles that call to us. It seems to me that the most
difficult thing about solving any of these puzzles is simply beginning.
Of course it could be that we simply never hear from people who start
but never finish puzzles, so let me ask: Have you started any of these
puzzles only to decide later to abandon the intent, and if so, why; and
if not, why not?

And congratulations of course to Christian and Doug, and thanks so much
for your stories!
-Melinda